‘More people will die of AIDS’

“Too many youths are brain smart and attitude foolish, and they are going to die if they do not change their attitude,” said Dr Peter Gentle as he spoke at Human Life International’s conference “Love, Life and Family” at Crowne Plaza yesterday. Speaking on “Update on HIV/AIDS,” Dr Gentle said too many girls give sex to boys with the hope of getting love, while too many boys give love to get sex. He said mind games were being played. While adults think that students in prestige schools are safe from sexually transmitted diseases, Dr Gentle disagreed. He said they were dying “just as much as anywhere else.” Illustrating this view, Dr Gentle disclosed that at least four male island scholarship recipients from a prestige school in North Trinidad have died as a result of AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). 

He said society was in denial, and many businesspeople, professionals and teachers have died, but this is not highlighted. Dr Gentle said there are students in Forms One and Two who are sexually active and are HIV positive, and pregnant. He said statistics showed that between 1999-2000, there was a 40 percent increase in new cases of HIV in the 15-19 age group. Dr Gentle said at one Catholic primary school in San Fernando, he had discussions with 11-year-olds who could not believe there were holes in condoms. He said they were displaying the attitude of adults — that condom use is safe sex, bisexuality is exciting, and promiscuity is “a macho thing.”

Dr Gentle has spoken to parents about their children being “snatched out of their home in front of their eyes while they are looking at their computers and looking at pornography on TV. They are being snatched out of the best Christian homes in this country.” He said research papers from the World Health Organisation, UNAIDS, International Planned Parenthood Federation and Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta have given a 12-30 percent failure rate for latex condoms. He wanted to know how adults can put forward condom use as an option for youths, when the failure rate ranged from 12 percent to 100 percent (for some diseases).